TMCC uses video conferencing to arbitrate case with foreigners

Published: Friday, September 14, 2007, 13:32 [IST]

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Madurai, Sep 14 (UNI) The Madurai chapter of the Tamil Nadu Mediation and Conciliation Centre (TMCC) used video conferencing for the first time in the State to arbitrate a case with foreign nationals, last evening.

TMCC sources here said today that a team of mediators of the Madurai bench of Madras High Court held discussions with a lawyer of the Republic of Benin in Western Africa in a cheating case involving 47.5 million US Dollars. At the end of the discussions, the mediators decided to visit Benin soon to find a solution to the case.

Giving details of the case, they said the case pertained to an anticipatory bail petition filed by Asian Evangelical Church and Union Society Founder-President Rev D Dhinakaran in the cheating case registered against him by the Tamil Nadu Crime Branch CID Police.

Mr Justice G Rajasuria had referred the case to TMCC as the petitioner pleaded innocence and promised the court to pay back the amount to the depositors, who had invested in his Society.

The complainants submitted that the petitioner, hailing from Karnataka, had opened an office at Thiruvanmiyur in Chennai and appointed trustees for his Society across the State. In Madurai district alone, the trustees appointed by the petitioner had collected over Rs seven crore from several building contractors, assuring them of contracts for building houses for the poor. One of the contractors filed a complaint, as the housing project did not take off.

In his statement, Rev.Dhinakaran claimed that he had mooted the housing project for the poor in 2004 based on the assurance given by Mr Ikye Auton, a businessman in Benin, to donate 47.5 million US Dollars. As he met with an accident in 2005, he sent another trustee to bring the money in cash through the European countries.

Officials of the European Union Economic Commission (EUEC) seized the money at the Orly airport in France in July 2005, under the Terrorist Financing and Money Laundering Regulations. As Mr Auton died, the petitioner was trying to retrieve the money with the aid of the donor's wife and her lawyer, the sources added.